Meth Bust Puts Northeast Kingdom On Alert

State Police Lieutenant Mike Henry and two St. Johnsbury Police officers keep public away from apartment being searched for signs of methamphetamine production.

Late last week, when federal drug enforcement
authorities took down what they say was a methamphetamine lab hidden behind an
historic cemetery in St. Johnsbury, many residents were shocked.

After all, it's pretty unusual for a long line of
police cars, ambulances, fire engines, and hazmat trucks to block a key
intersection. But that's what happened in this Northeast Kingdom town last
week.

After dismantling the lab near the cemetery, the police
caravan snaked to a quiet residential street. That's where a search team
evacuated a six-unit apartment and blocked access to it with yellow tape as
they searched for of another meth processing lab or storage. Kids were playing in an adjacent yard. Alfredo
Roman, a neighbor, looked concerned.

"And
I play out here with my 4-year-old kid with his little friends. It's not good
for the kids to be around stuff like that," he said.

Across the street, on the front porch of a sprawling
lavender house, a couple of young adults gawked at the swarm of police. This is
called the Living Room-a resource center operated by Northeast Kingdom Youth
Services.

One of the young adults who hangs out here is Billy
Joe Budziscewski. He said he'd be surprised if meth has come to this
neighborhood, but he's seen plenty of it in southern states, where his
relatives live.

"It's most of my family's drug of choice, like
everyone in my family that's down South and everything, it's their
top-of-the-line favorite thing. It keeps them awake. It keeps ‘em going," he
said.

And, he added, they ended up addicted and on the street. That's a future this 21-year
old wants to avoid. But State Police
Lieutenant Mike Henry fears meth is moving through rural Vermont.

"This is one of
the first cases that we've had here. It may be something that's going to be
more prevalent because it is so easy to manufacture this stuff that anybody can
do it, " Henry said.

The apartment turned out to be empty of dangerous
chemicals. But two men were charged in federal court with conspiracy to produce
meth in connection with the lab near the cemetery. On the Living Room porch,
Marisa Godfrey said meth users have plenty of other sources in the Northeast Kingdom.

"If you bust
somebody they're still going to find someone else to get it from," Godfrey
said.

Methamphetamine is a highly addictive synthetic
stimulant that affects the central nervous system. Although relatively rare in Vermont, it's hard to know how rare, because you don't need a
big lab - you can make it in a single soda bottle in a basement. US Attorney Tristram Coffin lists three major
cases so far - one in St. Albans, another in Island Pond, and this one in St.
Johnsbury.

"We have seen
some of it and when we do see it, as I say, we move on it in a really
aggressive fashion because it's a terrible drug and it's the kind of thing we
don't want to let get any kind of foothold here," Coffin said.

Coffin told VPR
he wants to keep meth at bay while the state concentrates on the bigger
problems of heroin and other opiates.